WHO WILL WIN AT HENLEY WOMEN’S? GB SET FOR WORLD CUP, HENLEY ROYAL ENTRIES ANNOUNCED, BRITISH MASTERS June 20 2015

It’s that time of year again: the booms are up, the marquees and portaloos are in place and Henley Women’s Regatta leads our headlong rush into a month of fun in the fields (and on the river) in Berkshire.

Elite Eights: An outstanding field features an Oxford crew (with seven of the their victorious blue boat), NCAA finalists Stanford University from California, two crews from Brown University on the East Coast of the US - whose squad topped the NCAA rankings – another American eight from Cornell and lots of aspiring GB squad members in Leander and Sport Imperial crews.

Senior Eights: Newcastle University were the best of this bunch at the BUCS Regatta in May but Oxford Brookes did well at Metropolitan Regatta and the University of London – fresh from their boot camp in Wales - won at Reading recently. An Oxford boat based on their Boat Race reserves Osiris is also in the mix.

Intermediate Club Eights: Lea and City of Cambridge were the best performing club eights at Met.

Intermediate Academic Eights: King’s College London and Durham University are ones to watch. Few of the intermediate crews from the BUCS Regatta are racing here.

Junior Eights: Headington are defending champions but the American challenge includes Kent School, who looked impressive in winning at Reading last Sunday.

Senior Coxed Fours: Brown have two crews entered; it is always worth watching Thames RC and University College London won at Reading.

Elite Quads: Olympic medallist Debbie Flood refuses to retire, dragging former world lightweight medallist Jane Hall along with her in the Leander quad against American opposition.

Elite Lightweight Quads: As is often the case, this event is a two-horse race between Durham University and what looks like a U23 composite of Gloucester, Edinburgh and Reading universities.

Senior Quads: Gloucester Hartpury's National Schools winners again step up to senior, facing some leading GB juniors in a Marlow/Notts composite plus several other strong crews including Molesey/Twickenham and Dutch crew Nereus.

Junior Quads: With the leading Nat Schools crews moving up, Surbiton High School look the pick of the Brits. Loreto Normanhurst of Australia are the unknown foreigners.

Junior 16 Quads: Henley, Headington and Nottingham took the podium at Nat Schools and are all entered here.

Elite Pairs: The Tees/Newcastle crew of Bethany Bryan and Nicole Lamb impressed at Met, beating the Nottingham/Queens Belfast composite who are also in action here.

Senior Singles: Club-mates at Agecroft, Olivia Salt and Holly McMullen did well at Met and will be in the mix here.

Senior Lightweight Singles: Louise Hart of Wallingford aims to defend her title. Nottingham’s Yasmin Marks could be a fellow finalist.

Junior Single Sculls: Lucy Glover of Warrington and Robyn Armstrong from Bedford Girls were B-finalists at GB junior trials in April, while Georgia Mulraine of Sir William Borlase’s was a GB junior last year.

Trunk & Arm Single Sculls: Claire Connon of Cantabridgian beat Sudbury's Sophie Brown by fourth lengths in the semi-final last year. This time, they are the only entrants in a field down from five last June.

With hardly any rain and a northerly wind forecast wonder how many @henley_womens records will be broken this weekend.

Unable to find £10k of sponsorship (and initially reluctant to look at crowd-funding options), HWR organisers have been forced to scrap their live stream this year, although they will be aiming to capture the atmosphere on a Periscope TV feed, which they will link to from Twitter.

If HWR weren’t sufficient proof that #ThisGirlCan, the fifth and final stage of the Aviva Women’s Tour bike race starts in Marlow on Sunday morning, which could mean travel hell for some and a double viewing opportunity for others.

The singles events both see Olympic champions aiming to win a fifth Henley title, New Zealander Mahe Drysdale and Mirka Knapkova of the Czech Republic the two in question.

There are some huge entries elsewhere, with 50 entries in the Prince Albert (student coxed fours) to be reduced to 16 in qualifiers, the details of which are announced on Sunday.

With Sir Steve Redgrave at the helm for the first time, the Royal has joined the 21st Century with its live YouTube channel and a Twitter campaign asking for video and photos of competitors who are #ReadyforHenley.

There are few changes from the Euros, where GB won 10 medals. Olympic bronze medallist Alan Campbell is considered fit again and returns in the single. Katherine Grainger and Vicky Thornley swap seats in their double in a bid to improve on their bronze from Poland.

Men’s pair James Foad and Matt Langridge will miss out, though, as Foad has a “slight niggle”, which is a shame as the Kiwi Pairs of Eric Murray and Hamish Bond have opted to stay at home and let some other people have a go for once.

A special hat tip goes to Monmouth RC's Mark Stewart-Woods, one of only two competitors to do the maximum six events, winning two golds and four silvers, as well as being involved in the two closest finals, just missing out in MB singles and MC 4x.